Heartbeat Operation

Heartbeat Operation functions as both an interactive instrument and a shared, embodied experience, staged within the setting of an ongoing surgical operation. The project centers on a custom MIDI interface embedded within a life-sized upper torso, positioned on an operating table. This setup introduces an uncanny presence—something between a body, an object, and an instrument—inviting participants to approach it with both curiosity and caution.

The system requires multiple people to play together. No one can control the sound alone; each participant triggers only a portion of the musical structure through touch, pressure, distance, or movement. Rhythm might depend on one person’s interaction, while melody or effects emerge only when someone else activates a different sensor. The result is a composition that forms through shared action, revealing how music can become a collective, embodied process rather than a solitary task.

The experience begins with a short performance in which the artists “operate” on the torso, demonstrating how movement across the body generates sound. After this opening sequence, the audience is invited to join the operation and discover how their actions merge with those of others to sustain the musical “heartbeat.”

By framing the interface as a medical scene, Heartbeat Operation highlights the tension between intimacy and strangeness, collaboration and uncertainty, turning the act of creating music into a playful but coordinated choreography of bodies working together.

Heartbeat Operation was performed as part of the 2025 ITP Winter Show along with Kurt Qian, with more performances on the way in 2026 planned in New York and Europe.